Fall Events: Lectures on Incarceration and Immigration, the History of Tattooing, and More

Special events on campus this semester span art exhibits, theater productions, lectures and talks by guest speakers, and film screenings

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Fall 2017 event highlights include the 20th-annual Eqbal Ahmad lecture on the topic of immigration control, mass incarceration, and state power; special art exhibitions by faculty and guests; a talk on the history of tattooing; and performances by our reputed student-run theater department.

This exhibition presents the Mexican Revolution from the perspective of the unheralded artist Sabino Osuna. Osuna, who lived in Mexico City, was a skilled portrait photographer who thoroughly documented the war, especially in its early years, from 1910 to 1914. He had unprecedented access to the protagonists on all sides as he captured the many moods of this dramatic period. A panel discussion and opening reception will be held October 17.

In this lunchtime Q&A, Gallery Director Amy Halliday will ask Keats about his unusual working process, how to succeed in the contemporary-art market when your stock-in-trade is ideas, and why he's currently collaborating with plasmodial slime mold at Hampshire College, and then will open the floor to students, faculty, and other visitors to propose their own thought experiments.

Featuring new and recent work by faculty artists teaching across the visual arts, this exhibition showcases the rigorous research, formal acuity and experimentation, and creative and critical questioning that underpin arts pedagogy at Hampshire. Note: extended hours, Nov. 2, 5:30–7:30 p.m., as part of the Amherst Arts Night Plus (see below). More info on the Gallery Page.

In recent decades, tattooing seems to have enjoyed unprecedented popularity. When we look at the historical record, however, we find evidence of abundant and widespread tattooing in diverse cultures around the world. This lecture will take you on a whirlwind tour through the history of tattooing, from ancient times to the present. Dr. Friedman is an interdisciplinary scholar who writes and lectures widely about tattooing and other topics in visual culture.

Lama Rod Owens is a leading voice of the new generation of Dharma teachers. He is also the coauthor of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, which brings resistance to supremacy, hierarchy, and oppression to the forefront of spiritual practices and communities. Lama Rod will lead talk the discussion on the political, historical, and social dynamics inside and outside of Dharma communities.

Poetry Reading with Danez Smith October 17 at 3:30 p.m. in the Taylor Room, Kern Center.

Poet Danez Smith is the author of Don't Call Us Dead (2017), finalist for the National Book Award; [insert] Boy (2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; and the chapbooks Black Movie (2015), winner of the Button Poetry Prize, and hands on ya knees (Penmanship Books, 2013). Smith is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, Cave Canem, Voices of Our Nation (VONA), and elsewhere. They are a founding member of the multigenre, multicultural Dark Noise Collective.

Natalie in Her Garden
Oct. 17–22, Main Stage, Emily Dickinson Hall

Natalie in Her Garden, written by Hampshire student Olivia Dalmedo, is a magical-realist play about healing and finding community in the aftermath of trauma. Natalie, a woman who has just left an abusive relationship, finds herself trapped in an icebox. In it she meets three other mysterious women, and together they look for ways to escape while trying to protect another from the same fate. For ticket reservations, e-mail hctboxoffice@gmail.com.

Join us for an interactive workshop with members of the Boston Ujima Project on how they’re strengthening local economic control and recentering economic power in low-income communities and communities of color in the greater Boston area. The Ujima Project is calling on neighbors, workers, business owners, and investors to challenge poverty and develop their own communities by organizing their savings, businesses, and customers to grow local wealth and meet their own needs as well.

This is a free event, and dinner will be provided. Space is limited; register here.

Join us in an electrifying performance from The Peace Poets, a collective of artists who celebrate, examine and advocate for life through music and poetry. Hailing from the Bronx, their style emphasizes lyricism, rhythm and authenticity.

Brooklyn-based Amani Willett holds an MFA in photography, video, and related media from the School of Visual Arts, in New York City. His photography is driven by conceptual ideas surrounding family, history, memory, and the social environment. His first monograph, Disquiet (Damiani, 2013) — a meditation on starting a family in a time of social unrest and uncertainty — was selected as one of the best books of the year by PDN, Photo Eye (Todd Hido), and Conscientious (Joerg Colberg). Willett’s photographs feature in the books Bystander: A History of Street Photography (Phaidon, forthcoming), Street Photography Now (Thames & Hudson), and New York: In Color (Abrams) and in a wide range of magazines and newspapers, such as American Photography, Newsweek, Harper’s, and the New York Times.

Seed tells the story of the relatively unknown crisis in seed diversity, its implications for the planet, and what people around the world are doing to solve the problem. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Hampshire alum Rowen White, who is in the movie. The film, which was executive-produced by Marisa Tomei, also features such well-known figures as Jane Goodall, Vandana Shiva, Winona LaDuke, and Andrew Kimbrell.

Featuring new and recent work by faculty artists teaching across the visual arts, this exhibition showcases the rigorous research, formal acuity and experimentation, and creative and critical questioning that underpins arts pedagogy at Hampshire. Tonight, the artists talk about their work. More info on the Gallery Page.

Holding Memory seeks to answer this question: How do objects hold and respond to memory? This intimate theatrical project casts objects in place of actors to tell our stories in a uniquely tangible way. For ticket reservations, e-mail hctboxoffice@gmail.com.

Organized by Hampshire College Visiting Professor of Art Education Jana Silver, this exhibition forms part of the 2017 Massachusetts Art Education Association’s conference, Art Education: Shaping Human Potential, which takes place at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Nov. 11–12. Silver’s show features the work of high school students from National Art Honor Society chapters across the state. (NAHS chapters are affiliated with the Massachusetts Art Education Association and the National Art Education Association.) More info on the Gallery Page

This year’s panel, invited by the Eqbal Committee, comprises Maria Fernanda Cabello, from Movimiento Cosecha (a movement of undocumented immigrant youths that propelled the recent protests in defense of DACA in Washington, D.C.); Carl Lipscomb, from BAJI (Black Alliance for Just Immigration), in New York; and Diana Sierra, of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center. More info on the Eqbal Ahmad Symposium page

Attendees will work together to outline strategies for what we can do to meet the challenges of our time while improving equity, justice, community resilience, and trust by activating the urban commons. Part of a series on Solidarity Economies in collaboration with Hampshire Entrepreneurship and Community Partnerships for Social Change.

Fynta Sidime is mounting a performance created through a 10-week ensemble-based exploration of interviews she conducted over the past year. The piece explores portraits of women artists from different parts of the world and their stories of home and family. For ticket reservations, e-mail hctboxoffice@gmail.com.

Dr. Tara Bynum’s Reading, Pleasures, #Blackjoy class will culminate with a TED-style symposium where students will give talks addressing issues of #blackjoy, black joy as a cultural and social marker of representation, intersectionality and media studies, and joy as a mode of resistance or pleasure.

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